Option H Is a Fiscal, Operational, and Planning Mistake (Opinion)

January 19, 2026 – By Adam Van Grack, a Councilmember for the City of Rockville who attended Montgomery County Public Schools graduating from Ritchie Park Elementary School, Frost Middle School, and Richard Montgomery High School.

Editors Note: See the official MCPS boundary study pages here

The Montgomery County Public School’s “Option H” (which is one of eight boundary options) proposes to remove all students from Wootton High School to the being-built Crown High School (which is 3.5 miles away), while simultaneously investing capital funds to renovate the existing Wootton Parkway facility and repurpose it as a multi-year holding school for Magruder High School and Damascus High School during their rebuilds.

While there are many practical and community-based reasons for Wootton High School to remain on Wootton Parkway (https://montgomeryperspective.com/2025/12/17/rockville-city-council-member-makes-the-case-against-relocating-wootton-high-school/), importantly, there are also many operational, budgetary, and common-sense reasons for MCPS to reject Option H.  When evaluated using adopted housing growth plans, student-yield rates, MCPS capital cost data, transportation geography, and operational risk, Option H is internally inconsistent and fiscally inefficient.  Simply stated, Option H removes permanent high-school capacity from a documented growth corridor, increases transportation distance for multiple student populations, and relies on short-term holding strategies where long-term capacity is required.

1. Enrollment & Capacity Planning Failure; Housing Growth in the Crown/Wootton Region

Option H reallocates students but does not solve MCPS’s underlying long-term capacity challenge.  Instead, it permanently removes a comprehensive high school from service in the Crown/Wootton corridor while renovating the existing Wootton Parkway facility to form a temporary holding facility to manage rebuilds elsewhere.

Despite arguments to the contrary, Crown High School’s planned capacity (2,219 seats) is not surplus capacity.  While moving all of Wootton High School into Crown may allow stability for 2-6 years, Crown and Wootton are directly located in a corridor with substantial approved and planned residential development.  Eliminating Wootton’s facility as a permanent school reduces system consistency and it will create future overcrowding forcing another move of the Wootton community in the near future, boundary churn, and emergency capital expenditures.

Specifically, adopted local master plans show that Rockville and Gaithersburg are projected to experience greater residential growth than most other parts of Montgomery County. Both Rockville and Gaithersburg continue to concentrate substantial residential growth in the I-270 corridor near Crown/Wootton. As just a few examples,

• The City of Rockville’s Town Center Master Plan increased the city’s net new housing unit goal from 2,000 to 3,000 units, largely concentrated near transit and existing infrastructure.[1] 
• The City of Rockville is in the process of creating a new Zoning Ordnance to allow greater residential density throughout Rockville.  This growth fit into the broaderRockville 2040 Comprehensive Plan, a long-term vision for the city’s growth, focusing on housing, economic vitality, and transportation.[2]
• The City of Rockville approved a 60 dwelling unit development on Wootton Parkway directly across from Wootton High School.[3]
• The City of Rockville and Gaithersburg are seeing large multifamily projects being built proposed and built in the Shady Grove area such as the 417-unit residential complex near Shady Grove Metro, reinforcing that the Crown/Wootton region is a long-term growth corridor requiring more durable secondary capacity.
• The City of Gaithersburg’s Crown Farm plan includes over 2,200 residential units, and Gaithersburg is considering additional major multifamily expansion at the Rio/Washingtonian area of up to 500 units.[4]
• The City of Gaithersburg reports 4,565 approved dwelling units, 3.490 unbuilt dwelling units, 577 unbuilt single-family dwellings, and 2,913 unbuilt multi-family dwellings in its development pipeline… and Gaithersburg projects 18.5% population growth by 2050.[5]

Using Montgomery Planning’s official student generation rates, infill and multifamily development generates 0.020–0.152 high-school students per unit, depending on housing type.[6]  These figures translate Rockville’s and Gaithersburg’s adopted growth plans into a great many additional high-school students over the next 5-15 years in the Crown/Wootton area. 

Bottom Line: Option H permanently reduces high-school capacity in precisely the region where long-term demand is projected to rise, contradicting fundamental MCPS long-range facilities planning principles.

2. Capital Cost Inefficiency

Under Option H, MCPS effectively: (1) Builds a new high school (Crown); (2) Only includes a limited population of anticipated nearby students into that high school; (3) Does not account for future growth in those areas; and (4) Still invests tens of millions of dollars to renovate Wootton’s facilities (not to restore permanent capacity, but for temporary holding use).

Despite arguments to the contrary, Option H is actually not a budget savings compared to any other option because capital costs to renovate Wootton’s facilities are incurred by MCPS even in Option H!  Option H actually requires duplicative capital spending with reduced long-term return, compared to preserving Wootton as a permanent high school when growth patterns show that such capacity will be needed.  As a comparison, if Options E, F, or G are chosen instead of Option H, then those same capital costs to renovate Wootton will be spent; however, then Wootton High School will still exist and be able to address the anticipated growth in Rockville and Gaithersburg.

Bottom Line: Option H provides the most inefficient capital cost option compared to any proposed holding school solution.

3. The Holding-School Contradiction

Option H proposes that Wootton should no longer serve its own students.  However, confusingly, Option H simultaneously proposes that Wootton’s building be renovated and remain open, staffed, and operational for years as a holding school.  If Wootton is viable enough to host entire high-school populations from Magruder and Damascus during their rebuilds, it is certainly viable enough to continue serving its own community. This internal contradiction undermines the policy rationale for closing Wootton High School at all.

Additionally, new or recently constructed facilities are typically better suited for temporary holding use, reducing the need for duplicative renovation expenditures.

Bottom Line: Using Wootton’s existing building as a holding school is a financial and operational mistake.

4. Transportation Inefficiency Is Worsened by Distance

Option H significantly increases transportation inefficiency, not only for Wootton students but also for Magruder and Damascus students.

Regardless of the fact that Wootton students are reassigned 3.5 miles away to Crown…  Magruder High School and Damascus High School are both geographically farther from Wootton than from Crown, meaning Option H would require longer average travel distances for Magruder and Damascus students during their rebuild periods compared to Options E, F & G (if Crown were used as the holding school).  In fact, paradoxically, Damascus students being bussed to Wootton’s Wootton Parkway location would literally be passing Wootton students being bussed to Crown for multiple years during Option H’s proposal!

Option H’s transportation inefficiency creates double displacement with longer routes, higher recurring transportation costs, increased driver-hour demands, and greater reliability risk. These inefficiencies run counter to MCPS’s stated operational efficiency goals.

Bottom Line: Option H provides the most inefficient and most costly transportation plan compared to any proposed holding school solution.

Conclusion

Option H is not a cost-saving or capacity-neutral strategy. Option H reduces permanent high-school capacity in a documented growth corridor, requires duplicative capital spending, increases transportation distance and operational risk, and relies on short-term holding solutions where long-term planning is required.  For fiscal, operational, and planning reasons, Option H should be rejected.

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[1] City of Rockville, Town Center Master Plan (housing unit targets)

[2] City of Rockville, Rockville 2040 Comprehensive Plan

[3] City of Rockville, Rockshire Village Project – STP2024-00493

[4] City of Gaithersburg, Rio Residential Project – SDP-10104-202

[5] City of Gaithersburg, Housing Pipeline Report & MWCOG Round 10 Projections

[6] Montgomery Planning, FY2026–2027 Student Generation Rates

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